05/03/2014

A weekend ago, Matt Ridley wrote an engaging piece for the Wall Street Journal
that was originally titled "The Scarcity Fallacy" - the title has since changed to
"The
World's Resources Aren't Running Out". The basic thesis of his essay is
this:

Ecologists worry that the world's resources come in fixed amounts that
will run out, but we have broken through such limits again and again

In the body of his essay, Ridley says:

Ecologists call this "niche construction"—that people (and indeed some
other animals) can create new opportunities for themselves by making their
habitats more productive in some way. Agriculture is the classic example of
niche construction: We stopped relying on nature's bounty and substituted an
artificial and much larger bounty.

Economists call the same phenomenon innovation. What frustrates them about
ecologists is the latter's tendency to think in terms of static limits.
Ecologists can't seem to see that when whale oil starts to run out,
petroleum is discovered, or that when farm yields flatten, fertilizer comes
along, or that when glass fiber is invented, demand for copper falls.

...and adds:

I nowadays lean to the view that there are no limits because we can
invent new ways of doing more with less.

I tend to generally agree with Ridley's premise that innovation of various
kinds has allowed us to extend the use of resources or find alternate ways to
meet our needs. I very much share this optimistic view of humanity and future
possibilities.

That said, some of the claims in his essay made me wonder
how well researched the essay is and how accurately it represents the facts or mainstream
views on some of the areas of discussion. Since I write now and then on
climate change,
I figured I'd pick that as an example to discuss Ridley's essay - sure enough, a
quick read of Ridley's claims makes it evident his discussion is amazingly superficial and creates
many fallacies of its own in terms of how it represents the
scientific/economic thinking on this subject. In fact, I would not be
surprised if his discussion of topics other than climate change were likely as
superficial and fallacy-ridden, because the last time he wrote on similar
subjects in 2012, the claims
were
problematic to say the least.

Let's start with these two passages in his current essay (I've
highlighted some portions in bold text):

This disagreement goes to the heart of many current political
issues and explains much about why people disagree about environmental
policy. In the climate debate, for example, pessimists see a limit to
the atmosphere's capacity to cope with extra carbon dioxide without
rapid warming. So a continuing increase in emissions if economic growth
continues will eventually accelerate warming to dangerous rates. But
optimists see economic growth leading to technological change that would
result in the use of lower-carbon energy. That would allow warming to level
off long before it does much harm.

It is striking, for example, that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change's recent forecast that temperatures would rise by 3.7 to 4.8 degrees
Celsius compared with preindustrial levels by 2100 was based on several
assumptions: little technological change, an end to the 50-year fall in
population growth rates, a tripling (only) of per capita income and not much
improvement in the energy efficiency of the economy. Basically, that
would mean a world much like today's but with lots more people burning
lots more coal and oil, leading to an increase in emissions. Most economists
expect a five- or tenfold increase in income, huge changes in technology and
an end to population growth by 2100: not so many more people needing much
less carbon.

04/13/2014

Whisk (http://www.whisk.me)
is a startup currently based in New York City that aims to change the way
transportation providers offer, and customers use, car ride services. It has a
few competitors such as Uber,
Lyft,
Sidecar, and
Hailo although their
business models are different. Whisk was
founded by three people - Michael Ibrahim (CEO), Ram Trichur (President),
and Vivek Chandran (CTO). Ram happens to be a close relative - so I did a Q&A
with him about what he and his team are trying to do with Whisk.

Ram: We are an on-demand ride service. Customers can request a ride
through their smart phone and control the entire ride experience through the
Whisk App. We are also quickly becoming the go-to technology platform for the
industry, transforming the way in which current car service operators run their
business.

Yottapoint: Why did you pick this name? I noticed there are a number
of other small companies with the same name [Whisk
(NYC), Whisk (SF),
SF Whisk] - do you think
this might make it difficult for people to reach you or learn more about your
services?

Ram: We had a healthy debate about that! A couple of things influenced
our decision. In the context of moving people, the name intuitively conveys
taking someone to their destination quickly. We were also able acquire a nice
domain (http://whisk.me) which
builds on that sentiment. We also felt that a discoverable brand is less
important for a mobile only service ...once someone has the App on the phone, it
becomes a habit, and a majority of new customer acquisition comes from existing
customer referrals and press mentions (vs. Googling for something generic like
"car service"). There was of course the downside that searching for Whisk on the
app store will be a tough fight for relevance ....we are happy that after just a
few months now we are the top result on the Apple app-store and the second
result on Google-play store if you type in Whisk.

Yottapoint: How/why did you come up with the idea for Whisk?

Ram: The co-founders of Whisk are New Yorkers. Though we have a good
public transportation system, getting a cab in NYC is difficult especially if
the weather is bad, you have young kids or it is the notorious "shift change
time" for taxis. Going in a taxi is also not a very pleasant experience always.
You are cramped for room, some drivers are just rude, and if you have a problem
- all you can do is call 311. My colleague and I at McKinsey discussed this in
late 2012. We realized that there were other well-funded players in the market -
but after much research, we concluded that the market was still nascent and
there was a tremendous opportunity to partner with the industry to build
something really big.

Yottapoint: Do you operate only in NYC right now? If so, any plans to
expand to other cities?

Ram: NYC is 40% of the ground transportation market in the US. We are
well on our way to establishing a solid base here. In the next several months we
will be expanding to a few other metros.

Yottapoint: You seem to have several competitors – Uber being the big
one, but also Lyft, Sidecar, Hailo. Can you help us understand the key
differences between Whisk and these other services?

The cost of disasters tied to extreme events is indeed rising rapidly - but
once you normalize this to the increase in the wealth of the world as
represented by global GDP (we own a
lot more "stuff" now than before) - the trend
basically vanishes

Richer countries are in a better position to protect people's lives in
times of disasters at the expense of higher property losses. He says: "As countries become richer, they are better able to deal with disasters —
meaning more people are protected and fewer lose their lives. Increased
property losses, it turns out, are a price worth paying"

Improvements to deal with disasters (e.g., newer building codes and
improved
construction, better forecasting, better preparedness and responses) over
the years reduces disaster damages/costs (lives and property) and this is
not properly reflected in Pielke's assertions - this has been pointed out to him before, yet he continues to publish his
misleading claim

Unlike Pielke's claims that somehow climate change is not causing an
increasing frequency of extreme events, there are several situations where
this is in fact the case

Pielke responded to these critiques in an email to Think Progress (same
link as above):

03/06/2014

UPDATE on 3/9/14: Added some responses from Sudhakar to user questions in the comments section.

I was recently catching up with my good friend - the multi-talented
Subra Sudhakar - a tech industry veteran, CEO of the startup
School Cues and an
accomplished Indian classical musician who has played with leading Indian
musicians over the years. As it turned out, I discovered he had just co-founded another startup - called GLTYR. Having heard from him about it, I checked it out
myself and was impressed because I think this product will be a catalyst for
more advanced personalized video/audio/text communication in the coming years.
Here is a Q&A I did with Sudhakar about his new product/company (with minor
edits for grammar/clarity).

Yotta Point: What is GLTYR?

Sudhakar: GLTYR (pronounced “Glitter”) is a mobile app that helps
create and present your message to make an emotional connection with your
audience. Your message comes alive with a picture, audio and video and up to 900
characters of text. What makes this app even more exciting is that a GLTYR
message can be created and sent out in as little as three to five minutes
(depending on the length of your message) - entirely through the app.

Yotta Point: How did you come up with the idea for GLTYR?

Sudhakar: The genesis for GLTYR came from a combination of five
technology and behavioral trends –

The average human attention span is two minutes or less in absorbing and
retaining information.

Content will ultimately end up being created and consumed on a mobile
device, rendering the desktop obsolete in several scenarios or applications

The world is going mobile so quickly that there is a greater probability
that a coffee shop owner in a remote village in Mongolia will use a smart
phone and not a computer to create and send out quick messages / digital
fliers that would drive his brand across the globe in less than a few
minutes.

There are several fields where the concurrent confluence of
audio-video-visual-text integrated with human creativity is required to make
a strong emotional connection with the audience. These fields or areas
include commercials, dating profiles, resumes, food, performing arts,
marketing fliers, greetings, invitations, business cards, elevator pitches,
value propositions etc.

The cost of producing audio-video-visual commercials is prohibitively
expensive for the average consumer or a small business. The cost of
purchasing, filling out and sending greeting cards is also getting more
expensive. Plus, these cards are unemotional, with a limited shelf life on
the refrigerator door. We would like to make it ridiculously affordable for
people to create messages / commercials / cards / resumes on the fly which
integrates picture, audio, video and text and push it out in less than a few
minutes to thousands of people.

Yotta Point: Why should anyone consider using GLTYR? Aren’t there other apps
out there which have similar capabilities?

03/01/2014

Evan Soltas’
blog
posts and
chart, following his
Bloomberg View article ("Is the U.S. Better Off Without Unions?"), are quite
interesting and worth reading. I tend to agree with his observations on why
unionization has declined in the US (and
apparently other developed countries) in the second half of the 20th century
and I also question the focus on unions as a key method of addressing
unemployment and wage pressure challenges faced by US workers. However, I am not
convinced that Soltas' ideas to address the issue are that effective. So, I'd
like to offer a different perspective on this subject given my background as an executive in the
Silicon Valley tech industry. This perspective focuses on the after-effects of
stock-based compensation on various macro factors.

First, some context. In Silicon Valley, tech labor has tended to be
non-unionized for quite some time. Additionally, over the last two decades, I've seen software design,
hardware manufacturing, hardware design and other functions move outside of the US
(I have also been in positions where I have moved certain jobs overseas). The
reasons are simple. There are qualified workers who can do these jobs outside the
US, typically at a much lower cost. Moreover, when a company's competitors move
jobs or are located overseas in cheaper labor markets, for financially
competitive reasons the company ends up having to do the same. Additionally, some of the larger tech
companies that sell directly in non-US end markets need workers in those
regions. Despite this trend, and despite many tech jobs being non-unionized,
Silicon Valley has managed to maintain a decent jobs picture (example)
for well-paid employees - I think primarily because US tech companies continue to be at
the forefront of driving significant innovation where more experienced US
workers have an advantage over workers is job markets outside the
US. My experience suggests that at least in Tech, where workers tend to be paid
relatively well because of their skills, unionization has not been a significant
factor in driving employment or wage trends. I can’t extrapolate from this to
infer that the tech experience should be applied to every other industry but it
is suggestive that we need to look for deeper explanations for increases in
income inequality and decline in unionization in the US and other economies.

The advent and global popularity of the internet has led to multiple forms of
media - TV, cable, newspapers, etc. - seeing their futures
converge on the internet
(where there is a proliferation of relatively free
content). As a result, they are losing market & pricing power when it comes to
distribution.

There has been
a large
expansion in the customer base for news - and this
growth in
(sales) "volume" will
(partly)
counter the loss of revenues from widespread competition. Therefore, he
says: "Big
opportunity for news industry in next 5-10 yrs is to increase market size 100x,
drop prices 10x. Become larger & much more important."

He
adds: "the more noise, confusion, and crap -- corresponding increase in need
for trusted guides, respected experts, quality brands"

News and media are one of my favorite topics and it is hard to do justice to
this topic in a single & quick post, but I'll try. Since I have a fair amount of
direct experience in this area and have enjoyed many discussions over the years
with many friends interested in this area - like
Peter Daou - I'll say the following in response to
Andreessen's thoughtful observations.

02/18/2013

I recently read Professor Michael Mann's book "The
Hockey Stick and The Climate Wars". There are several reviews of the book
online, a couple of examples being
Shawn Lawrence Otto's review at The Huffington Post and
Jeff Masters' review at Wunderground. However, I found the book compelling,
engaging and valuable on several fronts and felt it was worth making a few
observations here. If you are a person who is not entirely familiar with the
recent history and politics of climate science, it offers a highly readable and
informative summary that captures some of the progress and setbacks over the
last two decades or so. Mann's passion for climate science comes through very
well in the book and in the process he also addresses in some detail the
following aspects of climate change.

2) The right role of true skepticism in scientific inquiry - and how this
differs from the practice of
climate change denial (or
climate denial) that uses a combination of (a) a veneer of
skepticism, (b) often incompetence in basic statistics and (c) the use of
deliberately misleading data

3) The slow but gradual evolution of scientific knowledge, a process that is
self-correcting and generates better understanding over time

Mann offers many interesting examples from the climate change field
contrasting them with the typical demands of the blog/media/news cycle that
might immediately trumpet a new research paper as if it almost
single-handedly destroyed the scientific consensus, without waiting for the
time-intensive scientific process to peer assessment, correction and
learning

5) The deplorable, often personal attacks on climate scientists who publicly
speak or write about the serious manifestations and consequences of climate
change through willful misrepresentation of their or others' work and/or false
accusations of fraud or misconduct

As Mann shows, these attacks are usually fronted by certain politicians
(usually Republicans close to the fossil fuel industry), a handful of
scientists who are typically not climate science experts, and often by
denialist writers, bloggers and pseudo-scientists. Mann also suggests that
the manufactured controversy has often coincided with time periods when the
U.S. Congress was poised to pass climate change legislation - thereby making
it easier to kill such legislation.

The attacks and their consequences are examined in much detail given
Mann's personal experience and the character assassination campaign he and
some of his peers have faced over the years; he particularly explores the
controversy over the "hockey
stick" and the
Climategate
episode

6) The increasing use of blogs (e.g.,
RealClimate) by
climate scientists to communicate the science to the public and media, and push
back in real time on false, distorted or misleading presentations of climate
data

Mann walks readers through how different factors can affect climate and
temperature in different ways, thereby providing a nuanced discussion of
climate change and warming, which is often missing or understated in
websites arguing against the evidence for anthropogenic global warming

8) The role of temperature proxies - such as tree rings, ice cores, lake
sediments, etc. - in the estimation of local, regional and global average
temperatures in past centuries and millennia when accurate temperature
measurements were not available

9) The use of statistical frameworks such as
principal component analysis (PCA) in the understanding of underlying
phenomena and variables driving temperature changes

Mann's book tries to cover all that and more and does a really nice job
overall in giving the reader an expansive view of the nuanced subject of climate
change, while passionately conveying the real urgency of acknowledging the
dangers of ongoing and future warming and the need for immediate action. I
highly recommend this book.

In terms of where the book could have been improved, I would suggest the
following thoughts for Mann and other climate scientists to consider. Unless
someone is an avid follower of the field of climate change and global warming,
it is difficult to grasp the nuances and subtleties inherent in understanding
climate, weather and the variables that can cause them to shift. I think Mann's
book can be further improved, perhaps in his next edition, by more explicitly
delving into common points of confusion for people I have talked to, such as:

Dueling reports of record heat and record cold (recent
examples): This confusion might persist because typical discussions
on global warming, even by scientists, fail to adequately inform people that
warming refers only to
averages and that record heat and cold can co-exist in a warming
world as long as record heat events
significantly
outnumber record cold events as the average temperature rises

Why seemingly modest increases in global temperature (e.g., 0.8
degrees C) should result in significant increases in extreme events: It
wasn't until the
excellent work of Hansen et al. in 2012 did a clear framework become
available to average readers like me to explain to others that a small shift
in averages can lead to a large increase in probability of 3-sigma, 4-sigma
and beyond temperatures, which in turn can lead to more extreme events over
time, relative to past experience

Lack of clear understanding of the role of additional factors that
cause otherwise CO2-influenced temperature changes to be
non-monotonic: The recent work by
Skeptical Science is very welcome in this context but it is rare to see
scientists use simplified means of communication on such an important topic

Additionally, I would like to urge Mann and his colleagues/peers to invest
more time in discussing & explaining the role of the potent greenhouse gas
methane (CH4) and the pros and cons of migrating our energy use from
fuels like coal to natural gas, especially given the increasing
concerns of
methane
leakage during natural gas extraction.

Finally, while I very much like blogs like
Real Climate, climate
scientists need to do a better job of communicating their findings and
implications in plain English. Again,
Skeptical Science
is doing a fantastic job on this and newer initiatives like
Climate Communication
are welcome and overdue but scientists need to be more tuned to this need going
forward.

01/13/2013

Here are two new, excellent short videos (about a couple of minutes or so
each) that explain (a) how global warming due to anthropogenic greenhouse gases
is happening in parallel with natural variability of temperature due to factors
such as volcanic eruptions (e.g., El Chichon and Pinatubo) and oceanic
oscillations (e.g., El Nino and La Nina) and (b) how the average temperature
derived from various paleoclimatic temperature proxies (e.g., ice cores, corals,
etc.) are positively correlated with thermometer-based temperature records.

The
video explaining natural versus human contributions to climate change is the
one below from the outstanding blog Skeptical Science, and discussed in posts
such as this one "16
More Years of Global Warming". Also worth reading are related posts from the last couple of years: